Cargo transported for commercial and other uses is often shipped in semi-trailers or other trucks, railcars, ships, aircraft or other shipping vehicles. In most instances, shifting or translation of cargo within the shipping vehicle can occur during shipping which can lead to damage. U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,533,513, 6,086,299 and 5,494,389, disclose cargo retention devices that have been well received in the shipping industry. A pair of such cargo retention devices may be secured on opposed walls of the shipping vehicle, and an elongated support in the form of a wood beam or the like is positioned across the bed of the shipping vehicle and engaged with the cargo retention devices to secure cargo.
A problem associated with these devices may arise when the shipping vehicles have different internal widths. For example, the elongated support commonly used with these devices in semi-trailer applications is an 8′ long 2″×4″ wood beam, but the inside width of semi-trailers (i.e., the distance between the inside walls of the semi-trailers) may vary several inches. For example, the inside width of semi-trailers having insulated walls is typically in the range of about 98″ to about 100½ and the inside width of semi-trailers not having insulated walls is typically in the range of about 100½″ to about 102″. A cargo restraint assembly that performs optimally for a semi-trailer of the smaller internal width is not likely to perform optimally for a semi-trailer of the greater internal width because, with the greater internal width, the elongated support is looser relative to the cargo restraint devices and the cargo restraint devices are therefore not able to as effectively transfer tensile force applied by the elongated support to shear stress.